Morgan Eng was on the road north to State College to witness the execution of the man who raped and killed his 16-year-old sister when he got the phone call.

The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals had issued a stay.

It was just six hours before Hubert L. Michael was to be strapped to a gurney, fitted with intravenous lines and injected with a lethal dose of barbiturates, muscle relaxants and heart-stopping drugs for killing Trista Eng in 1993.

Eng said, “We pulled over and started making phone calls to see if we should proceed.”

Morgan Eng talks about his sister Trista Eng, photo at right, who was murdered by Hubert Michael in 1993.
DONALD GILLILAND, The Patriot-News

State officials told him the execution could still go forward if the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the stay.

Although Michael’s attorneys were arguing that he might have Asperger’s, and that his mental condition contributed to his erratic attitude toward the appeal of his sentence during the 19 years since the murder, Michael had demanded the death penalty at the time he pleaded guilty and multiple times since.

The appeal the attorneys were now trying to reopen had been closed by the Third Circuit Court years ago at Michael’s own instruction.

Eng pulled the car back onto the highway and kept driving.

Thus began an agonizing wait into the dark hours Thursday night.

It was the third time hope of closure had glimmered for Eng and his family. Twice before a death warrant had been signed for Hubert Michael. Twice before the execution had been stayed. But this was the first time it had gotten so close.

This was the first time the day of execution had actually arrived, the first time Eng had entered Rockview State Prison and sat down in the small 10-foot by 20-foot holding room to wait.

“The prison was very hospitable toward us,” he said. “We were treated as well as you could be treated.”

As the minutes turned to hours, prison staff brought food.

“We got a taste of what the prisoners eat,” Eng said.

“We did what everyone else did: held onto our nerves and just waited to see if it was going to happen,” he said. “There was not a lot to do. There was a lot of silence. We played some cards.”

Somewhere, not far away, the man who killed his sister was waiting, too.

His death warrant would expire at midnight.

Somewhere in Washington, D.C., the state’s request to proceed with the execution was working its way through the court’s bureaucracy. Somewhere judges were weighing the arguments.

Two hours dragged to three, and then slowly to four, then five.

“It was very nerve wracking, not knowing what was going to happen,” Eng said. “We’ve been waiting 20 years for this to happen.”

Sometime before 9 p.m., Department of Corrections officials came into the room.

As soon as they did, Eng said, “We kind of had a feeling — the manner of everyone walking into the room, you could just tell it wasn’t going to happen.”

“There were a good couple of minutes of uncomfortable silence,” Eng said. Then time began to speed up again. The waiting — at least for that day — was over. They left the prison and decided to get a hotel room instead of driving the two hours back home.

“We got a bite to eat, had a couple of drinks and really didn’t talk too much about it,” he said. “I just remember the look on my mother’s face. It looked like her whole entire soul had dropped again. It looked just like Hubert had sucked everything out of her again.”

On the ride home the next day, the enormity of what had happened — and what lay ahead — had hit them all.

“It was complete, utter silence on the ride home,” Eng said.

As they dropped his mother off at her home just up the street, Eng’s wife, Amy, hugged her tight and said, “It will happen.”

Their mother replied, “I hope I’m still alive when it does.”

Eng said she isn’t answering her phone. He knows she’s home, and he knows she’s OK. She just can’t talk yet.

All the memories of Trista — both the good and the horrific — had become fresh again.

“It’s like she just died yesterday,” Eng said.

And the inevitable fading of the memories — again — becomes another loss.

“Now we have to do it all over again,” Eng said. “It could be three weeks or three months or three years from now” before the case is finally resolved.

“I do see where they’re coming from,” Eng said of the courts. “They want to be sure they’re doing the right thing, but you know, again they’re waiting til the last minute to do this. They had 20 years to get this done. Why drag us into this when you’re not ready to proceed? They had all those years to get the documents in order.”

All because Michael changed his mind.

Eng says he goes both ways on the death penalty. He understands the argument that it’s cheaper to just lock away a killer forever than to go through all the years of appeals and attorneys and court costs.

“Honestly, I’d rather have Hubert sit on death row the rest of his life,” he said, but without the comforts of a television and radio in his cell and visits. “I’d like to see him locked in solitary the rest of his life, but that would be cruel and unusual punishment.”

Thus, “For this case,” he said. “I’m for [execution]. ... Justice needs to be served.”

But Eng wonders.

“I’m wondering about everything,” he said. “I’m not sure whether justice is going to be served. Can justice be served? Is Hubert going to win again? Is he going to control our unconscious lives? We don’t have the answer.

“We’re basically going back to the very beginning again,” Morgan said. “I’m going back to work tomorrow and try to get my life back to what it was a month ago and just wait, in hopes that this will end.”

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